Control systems are used in monitoring and control of various types of equipment ancillary to buildings, controlling plants, and the like, and instrument controlling devices are also used. See, for example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2012-014388. For example, in instrument controlling devices, signals are exchanged between field instruments, such as process instruments and various types of sensors, equipped in a work area, connected through a network such as a FieldBus, where, conventionally, mobile terminals would be used to connect directly to field instruments to set, from above, parameters for calibration, or to display diagnostic results relating to the proper operating state of a field instrument.
In systems with this type of control, a standard (an international standard) that uses an electric current value between 4 mA and 20 mA as a signal, known as a “4-20 mA” signal, is broadly used as a network for connecting instrument controlling devices and field instrument. In such a network, in the past a value of a sensor that is a field instrument, or a value between 0 and 100% for the degree of opening of a valve (a primary measurement value) were expressed through the electric current value (between 4 and 20 mA).
Moreover, at present network systems are also being developed wherein a digital signal is superimposed on an analog control signal to exchange, with the instrument controlling device, “additional information” such as secondary measurement values for the field instruments (for example, a temperature for performing temperature-pressure correction in a pressure gauge), setting parameters for the field instruments, and the like. Such network systems are known as HART (Highway Addressable Remote Transducer™) communication, where the use of instruments that are based on the HART communication standard is increasing.
Initially, the primary purpose was to set parameters for the field instruments, such as setting ranges using a HART communication compliant handheld terminal, but in recent years there has been some diversification, such as advancements and standardization regarding self-diagnostics in field instruments, and the like. For example, monitoring field instrument self-diagnostics information on an “instrument controlling station,” which is added to, for example, an instrument controlling device, has also become one major objective.
In the engineering work in a controlling system or an instrument controlling device as described above, it is important to ascertain the connection status of individual field instruments. For example, as illustrated in FIG. 5, an instrument controlling device 301 and a controlling system 302 are connected to various field instruments 305. A plurality of controllers 303 are connected through a network 311 to the controlling system 302, and a plurality of I/O module signal converting devices 304 are connected to the individual controllers 303. The instrument controlling device 301 is also connected through the network 321 to the plurality of I/O module signal converting devices 304.
Moreover, a plurality of field instruments 305 are connected by signal lines 312 and signal lines 322 to the individual I/O module signal converting devices 304. Of these, each individual field instrument 305 is connected, through a signal line 312, to a route that is a device controlling instrument 302-I/O module signal converting device 303. Moreover, each individual field instrument 305 is connected, through a signal line 322, to a route that is a device controlling instrument 301-I/O module signal converting device 304. The I/O module signal converting device 304 converts between signals whereby the instrument controlling device 301 is connected by the network 321, and signals for connecting to the field instruments 305 through the signal lines 322.
The connection statuses illustrated in FIG. 5, described above, are for an integrated type wherein the instrument controlling device 301 and the controlling system 302 are configured as a single unit. In the connection statuses of the integrated type, described above, the connection status of an individual field instrument 305, when viewed from the instrument controlling device 301, and the connection status of the individual field instrument 305 when viewed from the controlling system 302 are identical. Consequently, the connection statuses of the instrument controlling device 301 and of each individual field instrument 305 can be checked using the connection diagram of the field instruments 305 used by the controlling system 302.
However, in recent years there has been an increase in the number of cases wherein the instrument controlling device is implemented afterward into a configuration with a field instrument of a controlling system wherein the instrument controlling device is not incorporated already. In such a case, as illustrated in FIG. 6, the field instruments 305 are connected to the instrument controlling device 401 through a route that is separate from the route by which the controlling system 302 and the individual field instruments 305 are connected. This is known as the “separate type” wherein the configuration is such that the connections between the instrument controlling device 401 and the field instruments 305 are separate from the connections between the controlling system 302 and the field instruments 305.
In this separate type, the plurality of controllers 303 is connected through the network 311 to the controlling system 302, where the individual controllers 303 are connected to the plurality of I/O modules 404, and the plurality of field instruments 305 is connected to the individual I/O modules 404 through the signal lines 312.
On the other hand, the signal converting device 402 is connected to the instrument controlling device 401 by the signal line 421, where each individual field instrument 305, of the plurality thereof, is connected by a signal line 422 to the signal converting device 402. Note that although omitted from the diagram, a signal line 422 is connected for each individual field instrument 305.
In such a separate type, the connection statuses of the individual field instruments 305 when viewed from the instrument controlling device 401 and the connection statuses of the individual field instruments 305 when viewed from the controlling system 302 are different. Because of this, it is not possible, in the separate type, to confirm, using the connection diagram for the field instruments 305 used by the controlling system 302, the connection statuses between the instrument controlling device 401 and the individual field instruments 305. In this way, there has been a problem in that, in the separate type wherein the instrument controlling device is incorporated afterward in a configuration wherein the controlling system and the field instruments are already connected, it is not easy to check the connection statuses between the instrument controlling device and the individual field instruments.
The present invention was created in order to solve problem areas such as set forth above, and an aspect thereof is to enable easy checking of the connection statuses of the instrument controlling device and the individual field instruments in the separate type wherein the instrument controlling device is incorporated afterward in a configuration wherein the controlling system and the field instruments are already connected.